Challenges Continue for Martin

The way Casey Martin sees it, he has the symbolism department just about covered, thanks to his sponsors.

Hartford Life says ‘Bring it on!’ Nike says ‘Just do it!’ And the logo of a new sponsor, Never Compromise, is on his golf bag.

“Well, at least I got all the slogans going,” Martin said.

For the PGA Tour, it is a brand new day that rolls into town this week at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, full of intrigue and human interest and big money and bigger controversy and the heavy weight of lawsuits, all brought on by the appearance of a 27-year-old rookie from Oregon with a bad leg and a golf cart who is playing his first tournament as a card-carrying PGA Tour pro.

Say what you want about Martin, but he has a well-developed flair for the dramatic entrance.

The last time we saw Martin competing on a golf course was at the Nike Tour Championship in Dothan, Ala., last November, when he played well enough to finish the year No. 14 on the Nike Tour money list. The top 15 earned PGA Tour cards for 2000.

The last time we saw Martin in a doctor’s office was just before Christmas, when he visited Dr. Brian McDonagh in Chicago for a third time and received another in a series of painful injections designed to help treat Martin’s stricken right leg.

The next time we see Martin, he will be riding a golf cart and playing in the Bob Hope.

No one has done that before at the Hope. Actually, no PGA Tour pro has played any tour event riding a golf cart . . . and if the tour has its way, neither Martin nor anyone else ever will again.

By now, the case of Casey Martin vs. the PGA Tour is familiar ground. . . .

Born with a rare and painful circulatory illness that causes blood to pool in his lower right leg and makes his shin bone extremely brittle, Martin excels as an amateur golfer at Stanford. . . . He sues the PGA Tour and wins the right to use a golf cart during pro events, citing the Americans With Disabilities Act. . . . He wins his suit. . . . The PGA Tour appeals to the 9th Circuit Court. . . . Martin plays the Nike Tour during the appeal process and gains his PGA Tour card.

The appeals court has not made a decision, although a ruling could come any day.

“They’re tarrying,” Martin said. “but I can’t and I don’t think about it. . . . At the same time, it lurks in the back of my mind, wondering what the future holds.”

No one is speculating what the 9th Circuit will decide, although the PGA Tour is holding fast to its hard-line position that riding a cart gives a player an unfair advantage.

And if the tour wins its appeal?

“Then he won’t be in the cart,” said Dave Lancer, director of information for the PGA Tour. “It certainly won’t be a popular decision, but the idea is to win the case because we think it’s right.”

There is believed to be little sentiment in PGA Tour offices to pursue the case if Martin prevails.

But if Martin receives an unfavorable ruling, he says it won’t be the end of the line.

“If I lose, I will pursue it,” Martin said. “I am going to pursue it as far as I can go, until the final gavel says ‘Get lost.’ ”

There is also the issue of how Martin will perform on the golf course, and he said he doesn’t want to think too much about what might happen.

“I’m trying not to put too much pressure on myself right now,” he said.

“I’ve been off since November and that’s a little too long, [so] I’m just going to see what happens. I’ve never been too anxious about one event. I admit I’ll be a little anxious about my game. So I’m not going to put too much pressure on me right out of the box--there’s going to be a lot anyway.”

At least that is a situation to which he is accustomed. Another familiar situation is his relationship with pain relievers for his condition, Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber syndrome. Martin says he and pain relievers have gone a lot farther than simply enjoying a first-name basis with each other.

“We’ve been married for six or seven years now,” he said.

“Pain has been a constant companion of mine for too long.”

Martin’s preparation for his debut as a PGA Tour pro has been less than ideal. He had to take time off after the procedure in Chicago, and poor weather in his hometown of Eugene, Ore., kept him off the course last week.

He saw Stanford play Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, but he also managed to play at two of the Hope courses, 18 holes at La Quinta Country Club and nine holes at Indian Wells Country Club.

Beginning Wednesday at Bermuda Dunes, King and Melinda Martin are going to be in their son’s gallery at the Hope, and they also plan to be there at the next two events on Martin’s schedule, at Phoenix and at the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. That’s a major time commitment, but there really was no other decision to be made, the elder Martin said.

“This is a dream in itself just for him to be here,” King Martin said. “We realize that it may be the final three he plays. You never know. So we’re going to catch the three and say ‘Thank you very much!’ ”

As for Martin, he prefers not to dwell on how many tournaments remain in his right leg.

Martin considers his tibia in the high-risk category for a fracture, which would almost certainly end his career. The condition of his leg could be a lot better, Martin said.

“It’s not great. My leg is OK, but that’s as far as I’ll go.

“You just kind of roll with it every day. But that’s just the way it is. I don’t have a choice. You know what? That’s OK. I got my buggy. I’m not complaining. At the same time, my leg isn’t great, but I’ll be able to go.”

And when his time comes, when he goes, when he rolls down that first fairway on his first day as a PGA Tour pro, Martin vows he isn’t going to be thinking about everything that he had to go through to get this far. He already has done that anyway.

Martin says he has reflected on his pro passage and remembers how he had to “fight and claw” his way to play, but discovered some unexpected rewards in his duel with the PGA Tour.

“I’ll be honest; they’ve made me,” he said. “As far as an endorsement situation and as far as a career in a sense, their fighting us made me. The fact that I can tee it up and get all this media and the fact that I have endorsement contracts that most first-year guys don’t, they’ve been a huge blessing to me.

“I try to dwell on that instead of getting bitter about who and why they chose to fight it. That’s not going to make you happy.”

Chris Murray, Martin’s agent at Imani Sports who negotiated the endorsement deals, agrees that the PGA Tour might have unintentionally aided Martin in his business dealings.

“Let’s just say his portfolio is shaping up quite nicely,” Murray said.

Maybe Martin’s future on the golf course will shape up just as well.

He hopes it won’t be as bad as it was early last year on the Nike Tour when he missed four consecutive cuts, three of them by one shot, and became so discouraged, he wondered if his dream of making the PGA Tour was within reach. But Martin said good things came out of his poor play.

“It humbled me, it forced me to my knees, I prayed a lot about the direction of my golf,” Martin said. “Fortunately, praise God, I made it. What can I say? I really can’t believe I made it. I had so much frustration that I’m kind of shocked I did.”

Well, he did. And now, he’s just going to have to deal with it, like everybody else . . . cart and all, appeals court ruling coming and the Supreme Court not out of the question. As Martin tells us from his cart, we’re just going to have to roll with it.